A full service team to deal with regulators and courts - and to help you to use the law for strategic advantage.

Our Competition & Regulatory team comprises lawyers across our European network, all with experience in acting for clients dealing with competition or regulatory authority investigations and litigation, and compliance issues.

Competition and regulatory issues have never been so important to businesses. Compliance is a challenge, but essential to avoid fines, damages actions and reputational damage. But competition and regulatory law is also often a strategic tool to gain competitive advantage through challenging competitors or regulators on business-critical issues.

We act for clients in a variety of industries, including technology businesses of all kinds, broadcasters, life sciences companies, telecommunications operators, sports governing bodies, professional and industry associations and government departments.

As well as a commitment to technical excellence, we have significant experience in dealing with the European Commission, national competition authorities and sector regulators. We are recognised as one of the leading competition litigation practices.

As a result, we know how the authorities and the courts approach issues from both a procedural and policy perspective, and we have the expertise to advise on how to structure transactions and to argue cases to maximum effect in securing your commercial objectives.

Competition Litigation

• Acted for Attheraces Limited in Attheraces Limited v the British Horseracing Board  [2007] EWCA Civ 38, the leading case on excessive pricing, which went to the Court of Appeal.
• Acted for Satellite Information Services Limited in Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Services Ltd & Ors v Amalgamated Racing Ltd and Ors  [2009] EWCA Civ 750, a case considering the legality of exclusive licences, which again went to the Court of Appeal.
• Acted for a consortium of fixed network operators in the appeal to the CAT of Ofcom's 2007 determinations on mobile termination rates, which is the leading case on Ofcom's dispute resolution powers (T-Mobile (UK) Limited v Ofcom (Termination Rate Disputes)  [2008] CAT 12).
• Acted for a leading computer games platform in relation to multinational competition litigation concerning licensing of games accessories.
• Acted for one of the interveners in appeals by BT to the CAT of Ofcom's jurisdiction to resolve disputes on BT's alleged overcharging for Ethernet and other services.
• Acted for a leading directory enquiry services provider on its appeal to the CAT of an Ofcom determination on BT's charges for access to directory information. The case went to the Court of Appeal and was the subject of a reference to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling.
• Acting for a consortium of fixed network operators in BT's appeal to the CAT and to the Court of Appeal of Ofcom's determination on BT's charges for Partial Private Circuits.
• Advising a group of fixed network operators on their appeal to the CAT of Ofcom's determination in connection with Carrier Pre-Selection services.
• Acted for Royal Mail Group Limited and Post Office Limited defending a series of judicial review challenges to its programme to close up to 2.500 post offices across its national network. We worked beside Post Office Limited from Day 1 to design the scope of the closure programme to try to avoid business disruption. The programme was completed without any successful legal challenge.    
• Acting for Tottenham Hotspur plc in its challenge to the decision of the Olympic Park Legacy Company to award the long-term lease of the Olympic Stadium to a rival bid consortium. Also acting for Tottenham in a concurrent judicial review challenge on state aid grounds against the rival bid's funding proposal.   

Mergers, Acquisitions and Joint Ventures

• Advising the owners of Northern Racing in relation to the Office of Fair Trading investigation of their acquisition of Arena Leisure.
• Advising Emirates Group on the EU Merger Regulation clearance of its acquisition of Alpha Flight Group Limited.  
• Advising Cineworld on the OFT's merger investigation into its acquisition of the lease to operate a cinema at The O2 Arena,London.
• Advising Shine on merger control aspects of its disposal to News Corporation.
• Advising All3Media on the European Commission and the Austrian Competition Authority investigations of a joint venture with the BBC.
• Advising a UK mobile network operator on a joint venture with a major retailer to jointly sell mobile phones and airtime.
• Advising a global telecoms provider on competition and exclusivity issues in connection with providing outsourced off-network international voice and data carrier services for a national incumbent operator.

Dominance and Abusive Conduct

• Advising a complainant to the OFT in relation to alleged abuse of a dominant position in an ancillary services market in the automotive sector.
• Advising a major US fixed and mobile network operator in the OFT's investigation into an alleged collective boycott by a trade association and in connection with the subsequent appeal to the CAT of the OFT's decision to close the case on administrative priority grounds.

Agreements and licensing

• Advising a Japanese pharmaceutical company on the EU competition law aspects of a research and development collaboration.
• Advising a US pharmaceutical company on the EU competition law aspects of a settlement of litigation in the USA which arose from a long-standing research and development collaboration.
• Advising a UK mobile network operator on the application of the Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation to a software, patents and know-how licence for technology used to stream content and facilitate internet access services for mobile phones.

Market and Sector Investigations

• Advice to Posterscope, an Aegis Group company, in relation to the OFT's market study in the outdoor advertising sector.  

State Aid

• Advising Channel Four Television Corporation on a European Commission investigation of the possible grant of State aid for digital switchover costs. 
• Advising the British Horseracing Authority on State aid aspects of the horseracing levy.